The best tools and services to capture, edit, publish and distribute video online.

Robin Good's insight:

The best video publishing tools categorized and sorted into a fast-access directory.

In this new free catalog of online tools and services that I have been culling for a few months in the background, you can find over 100 tools that I have personally tested and verified, that can help you with your online video publishing needs.

This tools directory already includes over 22 different categories including:

The clips come from Hyperlapse, the new Instagram tool which allows you to shoot short videos, perfectly stabilized and which you can speed up to your liking, mixed up with some nice chill out, ambient music from soundcloud.

The result is a wonderful kaleidoscope of everyday life moments spinning in a neverending sequence.

A beautiful audio-visual experience about who we are, what we like and what we like to remember.

The 360cam delivers easy real time streaming video over WiFi, recorded video, and still photos in the palm of your hand

Robin Good's insight:

If you are looking for a live-streaming camcorder capable of shooting full 360° HD video that has an affordable price, the 360cam from Giroptic, being crowdfunded on Kickstarter, has everything you need (including the certainty that you will get one, as the project has reached its planned budget multiple times over).

The camcorder, which is very portable and easy to use, uses three ultra-sharp fish-eye lenses which are all synchronized to simultaneously capture and stitch images in real time.

The camcorder is also equipped with:

GPS antenna for image geotagging

3 microphones

micro-USB

gyroscope for image stabilization

rechargeable battery

micro-SD card slot (up to 64GB)

The 360cam can also capture photos at 4096x2048 pixel resolution in addition to video recording and live streaming at 25/30fps encoded via H264 and saved as a standard .mp4 file.

TimeTag is the fast, easy and affordable way to capture, tag, search and share your video knowledge

Robin Good's insight:

TimeTag is a new speech-to-text service for online video that makes it possible to make any video-based content, immediately searchable.

The TimeTag automated speech-to-text feature creates transcripts, meta tags and subtitles, making it possible to to search and share for specific information also within the video.

TimeTag makes it also very easy to record any live event, conference or presentation directly to the cloud, to sync the video recording with the presentation material and, as mentioned, to add full text captions over the video while making it fully searchable.

Key features include:

Cloud-based video recording

Synchronize PowerPoint, PDF and Adobe SWF

Upload video from Wirecast, Camtasia and Webex

Auto transcoding to H.264

iOS and Android support

SSL secure: Operates over HTTPS

Template designs for video player and branding options

Integration with Google Analytics

In-video search

Video player integrating presentation, live video and captions

Embedding of video player

Password protection of specific content

Video editing online

Base price starts at £199/month for a max of 125 video clips and 4200mins of streaming.

"A free HTML5 app to take the pain out of transcribing interviews. Useful for journalists, academics and anyone else transcribing audio."

Robin Good's insight:

oTranscribe is a free, open-source web app which allows you to easily transcribe your video by using a very simple interface.

You first upload your audio file and on the same web page you can start typing your transcription, while being able to easily start / stop the audio and to rewind or forward to any point you need to without ever needing to leave the keyboard.

The start / stop acts in a smart way, and everytime you restart the audio track after having paused it, the playback automatically starts from a second earlier from where you left. Lovely.

Playback speed control is available both through a slider and via keyboard shortcuts. You can also easily insert time stamps within the transcription by simply pressing Ctrl/Cmd+J, and then when you click one the audio jumps immediately to that specific point.

More people are running to charity tube to post free videos and watch free videos than posting on you tube. Try posting at charity tube and you will never leave. http://www.africatube.net/ More visitors and more video views. Don't take our word for it, try it. Post one same video on youtube and put it on http://www.africatube.net/ and return ater five hours and compare the viewers rate and decide for yourself. Create your very own group or forum and control who watch it and invite everyone to watch the video. Above all, post video in English or in any language and viewers can watch video description in their own language. Try it and let us know your experience. Above all it is absolutely free like youtube

Looks like a brilliant tool that allows you to cross-post, covert to different formats and rip audio from video and even adds watermarks. Better yet it's in the cloud so you don't have to download anything. If it does half the things they claim, it's well-worth checking out.

Many thanks/mille grazie once again to the master of new media, Robin Good, for posting this.

CloudConvert is free web app which allows you to convert most any file into another compatible format. CloudConvert taps into your Dropbox or Google Drive account to access the files you need to convert and it provides a very simple and straightforward process to start a conversion.

You can try the service immediately as it requires no registration to be used. Non registered users can start 5 conversons per day with file sizes not beyond 100MB each (converted files are stored for 2 hours). If you register, which costs you nothing, you can do 25 conversions per day with individual files up to 1GB in size (cnverted files are stored for 24 hours).

The number of file formats supported is impressive and properly documented, including the output formats available for each file format.

An optional feature allows you to be notified via email when your conversions are completed.

HangoutMagix is a free web app which allows you to create the graphics elements to make your live sessions inside Google Hangouts look more professional.

With HangoutMagix you can create an overlay bar with your name and title, add a call-to-action and display the name of your show with its logo.

The tool is very simple and intuitive to use. You select the graphic element you want to personalize, edit the text, change the colors, select a style among the pre-set ones and you are ready to save a transparent .PNG file that you can then import into Google Hangouts interface.

This is a great recommendation by Robin Good on graphics for Google Hangouts. Hangouts are taking off and using graphics to spruce up the hangout for calls to action or logo/display has great impliations for adding value. I will check this out and pass it along.

QuickCast is a free and open-source (Mac only for now) app which allows you to easily record your computer screen activities, alongside with your voice into a standard video file that can be published and shared online.

How to use it: "Once installed, it's easy to record your 3 minute micro masterpiece. Simply select the QuickCast logo in your toolbar and then click record. You'll get a 5 second count-in and then it's showtime. Keep an eye on the QuickCast icon, it will indicate how much time you have left."

Quikcast allows you to record full screen or to select a dedicated region, and to add the recording of your webcam as well.

Thanks to PlanetMitch I have just found out that Toshiba will be shipping in the fall of this year (2013) new SDHC memory cards capable of writing speeds of up to 240 MB/s, and reading ones up to 260 MB/s.

The new series of SDHC cards is called Exceria Pro series is UHS-II compliant and will be initially available in 16 and 32 GB sizes. Toshiba claims these new cards to be the world's fastest-writing SDHC memory cards available.

Flixmaster is a web app which allows you to upload, trim, edit and link together (as optional branches) multiple video clips and to publish and share them on your web site and social media.

Flixmaster accepts any type of video file and automatically converts it during upload. Once your material is uploaded you can trim your original clips to extract the specific scenes you want to use in your edit.

You can also add branch out buttons to other video clips at any point inside your video to build multi-plot stories, guide and tutorials where the student can decide his own learning path. The branch-out buttons can take viewers to other clips or to whatever URL you may want to specify.

The final video can be easily shared on all major social media channels or embedded on any web site or blog.

Konoz is a web service which allows you to package and publish your own YouTube video playlists into free online learning courses.

It works like this: Once you are logged in into Konoz, you can input the URL of a YouTube playlist. Once you have done so, Konoz grabs the set of video URLs of the playlist and creates a custom page for your upcoming course, in which each video of the playlist is a lesson to be seen.

Konoz displays for each video its title and duration and connects them in a learning list where a visual indicator also displays what percentage of the whole course has been watched.

Finally Konoz provides curators of these free video courses with the opportunity to offer custom perks to their students, by offering extra features and bonuses in exchange for a money contribution. Curators can establish the bonuses and the value for each.

Thus Konoz offers a very simple way for those who are either YouTube creators to collect relevant videos or screencasts into playlists and then to package them into free online video courses, while providing also a stimulating option to reward their work.

Mazwai is an online video hub collecting high-quality HD video footage under a CC-license (or Public Domain) that can be immediately downloaded and re-used on any project you have, by simply crediting and linking the original author.

To use it, simply browse and click on any video you are interested in using. Watch it through the integrated video player and check the associated info. To download it simply click the down pointing arrow available on the video player and you will receive a .zip file containing both a .mp4 and a .webm version of your chosen video.

In this SxSW set of video interviews captured by Wipster (a collaborative video review and approval service) with some of the "experts" in the online video publishing field, you can hear most of what you already know and expect from the future of video: 4K, real-time editing, effects, 3D, small screens and more.

What instead emerges as the real challenge though, is to realize that no matter what kind of tools and services you use, the difficult part is to have a good story and to learn how to tell it on video.

Tools are great and easy indeed, but they don't make anyone a capable storyteller instantly. This is what we really need to work on.

No need to view all 12+ minutes of the video. Just check the first and the last interview in this clip and you will get the real meat.

Convert any video clip you have into an audio file (.mp3, .wav, .wma .ogg, .m4a or .aac) easily and without having to buy or download any dedicated software.

With Media.io you simply upload your video file (or provide the URL of where it is published) and then you select the audio format and quality settings you want and the rest is done for you automatically.

This is a no-frills, no-ads, no tricks and no-strings attached service. A little work of love that deserves to be supported.

So you've made your film... Now you start the biggest challenge of them all: getting it seen. We've complied a list of digital self-distribution platforms and asked each one why documentary filmmakers should pick their service over all the others.

Robin Good's insight:

If you have produced your own film or documentary and are trying to understand what are the different options, in terms of digital distribution, that are available to you, here is a good guide from the POV blog on PBS.

The guide reviews five available digital distribution services that do not require approval (like Netflix, Vodo, Indieflix, Indiepix):

This is a really good app, I'm using Lapse-it pro for almost 2 years now and in my opinion is the best to create time lapse videos with android, for stop motion movies instead I'd use other apps that provide onion skinning function.

DailyMotion Matchbox is a free service which allows any web publisher to publish a widget that showcases automatic video recommendations on his pages and to earn a revenue through video ads commissions.

The DailyMotion Matchbox offers a Chrome extension that makes it easy to publish any video from DailyMotion and from other supported video sites on your website.

It is possible to filter the content by limiting your selection of video to a specific channel, group, playlist, user, or language.

To activate the Matchbox you simply need to paste your Matchbox's code once into your website's template. The Matchbox will then appear on each page of your website where this template is used.

If you need to get the best video quality possible for clips that you need to publish online, here is a good short guide to the key settings, codecs, bitrates and compression levels you should use to prepare your video, (thanks to the Vimeo support team).

While these settings have been thought out to optimize video publishing on Vimeo, you can utilize these references to prepare and save video files you may want to publish through other video services as well.

*If you need to get the best video quality possible for clips that you need to publish online, here is a good short guide to the key settings, codecs, bitrates and compression levels you should use to prepare your video, (thanks to the Vimeo support team).

* While these settings have been thought out to optimize video publishing on Vimeo, you can utilize these references to prepare and save video files you may want to publish through other video services as well.

If you need to review and provide feedback to video shoots in a simple and effective manner, WIP is a new web-based app which allows you to upload video content, and then to comment it visually, straight onto the video frames themselves, and then to share it with your colleagues or teammates for further contributions.

After you have registered and uploaded your video clip, you can click at any point of the video while in playback, and place your comment or change request anywhere on the video frame.

When your client, teammates or sponsors are invited to watch the clip inside WIP, they see a timeline populated with red dots representing the points in the clip where there are specific comments. It is enough to click on any of those dots to jump straight to that video frame and see the associated comments.

WIP allows you to manage multiple projects, and to upload different versions of the same video in each one. Invite reviewers is as easy as clicking a button and writing their name and email.

My comment: Easy, intuitive, straightforward. If you want to collaborate and provide feedback about a video clip, WIP offers an excellent solution at a very affordable price.

Free for up to 10 mins of video uploaded.$100 a year buy you instead unlimited video upload space.

The best portable wireless microphone kit alternatives available for purchase online.

If you are a web publisher or rookie video-maker interested in capturing good quality sound in your next video interview, having a good, reliable portable wireless microphone kit can make all of the difference of the world (especially if the alternative is the built-in microphone inside your camcorder).

Recording the voice of the person you are interviewing with a dedicated mike, close to the person and not too sensitive to other sounds in the background is the ideal solution, to obtain the same kind of sound you hear on professional news interviews on TV.

In this collection I have put together by using the Amazon Wish List facility, you can find over a dozen "economic" wireless microphone kits (under $250) as well as indispensable accessories as adaptors, plugs, lavalier microphone backup and wind protectors.

Check out how VideoPro Camera app enables you to use, with splitter, a remote mic and headphones to monitor audio (via onscreen meter): http://www.VideoProCamera.com , designed by a top pro to enable iPhone video shooters to get professional results...

While I have used CastingWords for all my video transcription needs in the past, I am always interested in learning about new alternative resources on this front.

Today I was kindly invited to check out TranscriptionStar, an online full video and audio transcription service, accepting a wide variety of file formats and providing finished work in four different file formats: PPT, TXT, PDF, XLS.

As long as you can upload your audio or video file, TranscriptionStar has everything you need to get a professional transcription (English only) even within 2 hours from your own upload (super rush TAT)*.

*I have not been able to verify this claim, nor it is clear to me, even after looking at their official rate card what the cost would be for a 2-hour rush job

For normal 24-48 hours transcriptions prices are in line with other services of this kind.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.